Canada Needs to get Tough

After an acquittal of an Iranian intelligence agent in the beating death of Montreal photographer Zahra Kazemi, Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew insisted that Iran renew its investigation into Kazemi's death. Full story here

"The Government of Canada continues to insist that justice be done, the process has to be both transparent and credible. I call on Iran to fulfill its responsibilities to bring out the truth in this case."

You tell em Pierre, that'll change the Iranian's tune! What a joke, does Mr. Pettigrew really think that statement will change anything, the Iranians have shown no responsibility for their actions up until this point, why does he think it will change now? We need to get tough with Iran, our words have to be backed up with actions, not more words.

I have to agree with Zahra Kazemi's son, Stephan Hachemi. He had this to say about the governments inaction,

"A Canadian citizen underwent 72 hours of interrogations, was tortured to death, and over a year later the Canadian government is still reviewing its options after being humiliated, lied to, toyed around [with], and after that Iran closed the case and insulted me and my family by offering blood money,"

He makes a very good point, the government had a year to prepare for this, the government should have had prepared a response to Iran's inaction, most observers knew that Iran wasn't going to follow up on the murder properly. Only a fool wouldn't have seen this coming.

Yes I know the Mr. Pettigrew has said they are reviewing their options, and I also know that he is new to the post, but its time Canada stops getting walked on by Iranian officials who know that we won't do anything to back up our words. We need to do more than recall our ambassador, maybe trade sanctions, go to the Americans (seeing as Iran is being a pain in their ass too) get them on board (this is why you back up your friends in their time of need because you might need them someday too) and come up with a combined effort to make Iran pay for being the world's biggest pain in the ass. Canada needs to stand up for its citizens!

Update @ 9:32

I know this is pure speculation on my behalf but check out this story and then take a guess which country would be the first NOT to support Canada if we ever decided to impose trade sanctions against Iran.

Update @ 9:40

Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi once again threatened to take the case of Zahra Kazemi to international courts if local Iranian courts failed to deal with issue. Bahrain Tribune story